We are in deep trouble, educationally speaking
I just spotted this on Slate: "Less than one in four high school graduates in 2010 who took the ACT college-entrance exam were found to have the skills necessary for basic entry-level classes."
…Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others…
I got into a stupid flame was the other day on Facebook with a friend (and her commenters) She [A] posted the following to her wall:
If you think that putting up a mosque 600 ft. from ground zero and have the opening of the mosque on the anniversary of 9/11/11, is immoral, inhuman and a complete lack of respect for the memories of all that perished on that day and their survivors & that politicians are doing a grave injustice to the fallen heroes, their families and the people of New York City, THEN PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS TO YOUR WALLThe first commenter followed with
[B] its digusting its even a thought in someones head.....I saw this and saw yet another vile, right-wing sponsored attack on civil liberties. I am not religious, and abhor religion. I think it perpetuates an evil upon the world that does incalculable damage to current and future generations. However, I do support the rule of law, and the Cordoba House people have the right to build there.
Real life mind meld
Michael Balter reports that scientists are honing in on the real-life mechanism that allows two minds to meld during conversation:
Scientists have traditionally considered talking and listening to be two independent processes. The idea is that speech is produced in some parts of the brain, including a region known as Broca's area, and understood in others, including a region known as Wernicke's area. But recent studies suggest that there's actually much more overlap. For example, partners in a conversation will unconsciously begin imitating each other, adopting similar grammatical structures, speaking rates, and even bodily postures. This overlap helps people establish a "common ground" during conversation and may even help them predict what the other is going to say next . . . Some researchers think that so-called mirror neurons, which fire when one individual observes the actions of another, might be involved in these interactions.The scientists conducting the study argue that the experiments they've conducted demonstrate that listeners are active participants to successful conversations.
The other use of the imagination
Imagination is often used for play, but Timothy Williamson reminds us that imagination is critical for serious thinking:
[I]magination is not only about fiction: it is integral to our painful progress in separating fiction from fact. Although fiction is a playful use of imagination, not all uses of imagination are playful. Like a cat’s play with a mouse, fiction may both emerge as a by-product of un-playful uses and hone one’s skills for them.
What do people with at least some money care about?
What do people with money really care about? I assume that most of the people in airports have some extra money to burn; you generally don't see poor folks in airports. I also assume that airport magazine shops know what they can most easily sell to people with some money to burn. It's natural selection in action at airports--the magazines that didn't sell have been weeded out of our airports. What do Americans with money care about? They care about the things that loom large on the covers of the magazines you can see in big airports. At a major airport I recently visited, I took six photos to give an idea of all of the types of magazines on display (click the title of this article to see the gallery of photos). In airport magazine shops, you'll see things such as movie stars, how to make money without much effort, the coolest electronic gadgets, almost naked bodies, romance, status symbols such as luxurious trips, fancy clothes and expensive cars, eating food and talking about dieting, corporate filtered news, how to impress others, and looking young, looking young, looking young . . . But can you really determine what people think a lot about by looking at the magazines they buy? I think so. This is definitely the sort of thing a Martian anthropologist would do to find out what people with at least some money really cared about. What don't they care about? Everything else. You won't see magazine covers featuring starving children or homely people. You won't find magazine covers telling you how to give up your wealth to others in need, how to speak truth to power, and how to hang around criminals, sick people and prostitutes like Jesus supposedly did. [gallery link="file"]